TOGETHER WITH

It's Tuesday and Spotify is entering its gym bro era with the launch of guided workout playlists and on-demand Peloton classes.

THE BIZ

The origin story: EPIC—aka the modern musical retelling of The Odyssey that became a homegrown sensation on YouTube and TikTok—is getting the Hollywood treatment from Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Songwriter/composer Jorge Rivera-Herrans originally intended for EPIC to be his senior thesis at the University of Notre Dame. But since he began working on the project in 2021 (during the height of COVID), he also decided to post the process on TikTok.

By 2022, Rivera-Herrans began releasing full songs, singing the main part of Odysseus himself. Those self-produced EPs hit charts on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, and fans across TikTok and YouTube responded by animating their own versions of the musical.

Rivera-Herrans ended up commissioning several of those fans to draw official versions of the songs’ story, then sourced over 20 singers and voice actors with the help of his online community and sewed the finished project into a full movie posted on YouTube.

The film adaptation: According to The Hollywood Reporter, the online success of EPIC quickly caught the music industry’s attention, and “every label” reached out to Rivera-Herrans in 2023. The creator ultimately signed with Atlantic Music Group.

Now, Atlantic’s President, Kevin Weaver, is involved in producing a big-screen adaptation of EPIC. THR reports that the animated musical film is in “nascent stages,” but Creative Artists Agency—which reps Bruckheimer—plans to begin shopping it around to studios and streamers as early as next week.

It’s probably a safe bet to assume Rivera-Herrans will reprise his role as Odysseus for the upcoming film. At least for now, however, it’s too early to tell if any of the fan animation talent or original voice cast will be involved.

The world’s leading creative AI technology platform is heading into spring with $300M in annual recurring revenue, driven by 600% growth in new users in Q1 2026, compared to Q1 2025, and a major announcement for video creators.

Artlist is officially launching Artlist Studio: the AI production platform for creators.

Artlist Studio emulates a real-world, intuitive production workflow with visual decision-making capabilities for high-end results. Creators can now step into the director’s chair to manage every single frame and shot, from casting characters and building locations to precise camera angles. 

Studios and professional filmmakers can increase their output without compromising on cinematic quality with a comprehensive platform of high-end capabilities built around four core pillars:

Artlist Studio offers creators and teams precise visual control, solving one of generative AI's biggest challenges and ensuring total consistency across entire productions.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

GAME ON

The feature: If you could watch a streamer play a game and then immediately try out a demo for yourself, would you be more likely to purchase the full game?

Twitch’s latest experimental feature seeks to answer that question. The tool—called Game Lift—will make a selection of titles playable within Twitch, adding an interactive twist to the Amazon-owned platform’s offerings.

Zach Bussey, an analyst who often reports on new Twitch features, was among the first people to spot Game Lift in the wild. He described Reanimal as the first title promoted via the feature, meaning Twitch users who search for the horror adventure game will now be prompted to try out a 20-minute demo.

The context: Game Lift represents a rare intervention from Twitch’s parent company. Since acquiring the streaming hub in 2014, Amazon has done shockingly little to synergize with its subsidiary.

Recently, however, that relationship seems to be evolving. Amazon has souped up Twitch’s affiliate marketing business and is now providing a “lift” for game studios that want to convert stream viewers into paying customers.

According to Bussey, Game Lift was “developed by Amazon” as an ad product—but the feature’s potential amid the current social shopping boom is equally intriguing. Ecommerce on social media is particularly big among Twitch’s core Gen Z demographic, and other streaming hubs—especially Whatnot—have harnessed a live shopping industry that now accounts for about $22 billion of annual sales.

With video platforms like TikTok and YouTube also generating billions of dollars of quarterly sales, live shopping is too big for Twitch to avoid. Game Lift seems a sensible way for the platform to bring more ecommerce to its shores.

CREATOR COMMOTION

The creator: Just a few years ago, Tiffany La’Ryn was working at a bank. But she didn’t want to be. So, she quit her job and was soon hired by a YouTuber, who—after seeing her work up close—encouraged La’Ryn to start her own channel.

She followed that advice in 2020. By the next year, she’d grown her socials enough to land a spot in Meta’s Black creator program, We the Culture. The program gave La’Ryn a platform mentor and a stipend from a $25 million budget, and helped her learn the importance of performance and audience data.

At the same time, however, juggling everything from writing and editing to social media management had begun eating into the time La’Ryn could spend with her family. So, in 2022, she brought her six sons in as official channel co-stars and began posting long-form, scripted videos that focused on her entire family.

But six months after transitioning the channel to full-time family, La’Ryn was already thinking about how having six boys could affect their reach.

The growth: To solve that problem, she hired a little sister and tapped adult family members and actors to join for steady roles. La’Ryn’s audience grew as a result, and she started writing more ambitious videos—the kind that called for more actors and real film sets.

La’Ryn knew she needed funds to help offset growing production costs, so she reached out to Spotter. The company ultimately invested in her channel, and La’Ryn was able to scale fast, hiring employees, buying new equipment, and renting sets.

For 2026, La’Ryn says, “one of my goals is better work/life balance, because I think not having that can really take a toll on your creativity. I’m thinking about who I can hire and train to help with that.”

FYI: Spotter is a Tubefilter partner.

The big event: WrestleMania 42 was a big win for all parties involved. WWE climbed into our Global Top 50 YouTube chart, creator iShowSpeed made his official WrestleMania debut, and over 100,000 fans attended the event across two nights.

YouTube traffic helps explain the ongoing cultural impact of WrestleMania. The WWE YouTube channel collected 319.2 million weekly views (a 73% rise in traffic from the previous week), bringing it to a lifetime total of over 103 billion views.

Established stars were largely responsible for that uptick. Roman Reigns’ thrilling performance during the championship match was a big deal for long-time wrestling fans, and iShowSpeed’s WrestleMania highlight has received just as many views. A single clip of Speed’s frog splash on Logan Paul, for instance, has attracted more than 2.3 million YouTube views and counting.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, James Hale, and Josh Cohen.